Lamplight in the Shadows (2 page)

The unmistakeable smell of cheap air freshener engulfed him as soon as he set foot through the front door. It was supposed to be fragrance of lavender, or so the label on the can declared. But unlike lavender, this had a dreadful synthetic quality that left James coughing and wheezing as his bronchi objected to the onslaught. There was no use commenting. He had tried on many occasions to suggest alternative ways of making the house smell pleasant. A vase of freshly cut flowers perhaps? Or maybe a bowl of potpourri, regularly topped up with some aromatic oils? However, no; his ideas fell onto deaf ears and he had to contend with various offensive aromas from spray cans.

Ignoring the clatter of plates emanating from the kitchen, he climbed the stairs to his study and opened wide the window. Leaning out, he filled his lungs with the cold, fresh evening air and immediately felt better.

Shifting his weight onto his right foot, he leaned further out and gazed towards the west. Even though the light was fading fast, he could just make out the outline of the Minster; that wondrously imposing feat of architecture from which the market town of Barminster took part of its name. The first part came from the old gateways, or bars, which used to protect the entrance roads into the ancient town. James was just starting to muse on how fortunate the town was to have two beautiful churches, with the Minster and St Peter's, when he was summoned by a terse shout from downstairs.

‘
Dinner!
'

With a sigh, he shut the window, took off his overcoat and returned downstairs. As he reached the living room, Janice Armstrong appeared from the kitchen and passed him a dinner tray, pausing for only the briefest of moments to receive a superficial brushing of her cheek by way of a kiss.

It was less than a perfunctory gesture. It was more of a reflex; something the nervous system triggered without any higher thought processes being involved. James had long since ceased trying to make it anything more than that. Her constant coldness toward him had slowly nurtured a defensive indifference within his own emotions. Although the briefest of encounters, such closeness also allowed James to detect the unmistakeable smell of tobacco smoke drifting from Janice's clothes; hence, the cheap air freshener. It was a choice of that or the even more offensive odour of stale smoke. Both were abhorrent to James.

‘God knows what I must smell like when I get to the surgery each morning.'

Janice ignored him as he grimaced, trying to imagine the combination of lavender air freshener mixed with tobacco smoke as detected by a fresh nose, previously unpolluted by such olfactory horrors. His mind immediately recalled a moment whilst at medical school. He had left the hospital one evening and was walking back to his lodgings. On the way, he had stopped at a newsagent and bought a bar of chocolate. On taking the money, the shop assistant had wrinkled his nose and remarked, ‘I bet you work in the hospital!' Up until then, James had no idea that he was walking around smelling freshly sanitised. At least, that is what he had hoped he smelt like, and nothing worse!

As he sat down in a small armchair, his thoughts returned to the present and he surveyed the plate in front of him. Boil-in-the-bag cod in parsley sauce, tinned peas and oven-baked chips. It would not have surprised him to find the words ‘convenience food' written through the centre of the fish, in the same way as Brighton rock was so inscribed. Still, it was edible and he was hungry. The past four years had taught him to expect nothing greater. Culinary expertise was not one of Janice's qualifications.

‘Are you not eating?' he asked, as Janice sat down in the armchair opposite him, her hands empty.

He did not really know why he bothered asking anymore. He already knew what the reply would be. There were two versions: either she had ‘eaten earlier' or she wasn't hungry and would ‘get something later'. She never did. In fact, he was not too sure as to what she did eat. He had seen her with the occasional packet of crisps, a bowl of cereal or a plate of chips; nevertheless, nothing that remotely resembled a meal. ‘I had something earlier. I wasn't sure what time you would get in,' came the reply.

‘I told you I wouldn't be delayed today. I was not at the surgery this afternoon. I went to see the Archdeacon.' He glanced up for any signs that she was listening to him. ‘He was most interesting and encouraging,' he continued. ‘Would you like to hear what he had to say?'

‘Perhaps later,' she replied, immediately dismissing the subject by pressing a button on the television remote control. The raucous theme tune to
EastEnders
filled the living room, conveniently suppressing any further attempts at conversation and eliciting another grimace from James. Retreating within his own thoughts, he finished his meal and looked pensively around him.

The house was a small, semi-detached ‘starter-home' situated on a modern housing estate on the edge of Barminster. Three years before, it had been new when James bought it. It was the first house he had purchased, having previously spent five years as an impecunious medical student in London and then proceeding to move around the country every six months with every change of hospital appointment until arriving here in East Yorkshire. Although he was approaching his thirtieth birthday, he was yet to earn a decent income and this house was as far up the property ladder that he could jump to on the first attempt.

The ground floor was open-plan. The front door opened into the living room, which continued, via a small arch, into a small dining area and then, via an even smaller arch, into the tiny kitchen area. The open balustrade of the stairs started just inside the front door. At the top of the stairs, the first room on the right was a cramped box room which was utilised as a study, his books and papers overflowing the desk onto the floor in a desperate search for space. The barely passable guest room came next, followed by the bathroom and then the master bedroom; the latter being just large enough to accommodate a double bed. Outside, a short driveway, long enough to park two small cars bumper to bumper, connected the tiniest of front and rear gardens to complete the estate.

A cottage-style suite of two armchairs furnished the living room, along with a small two-seater sofa, two floor-standing bookcases from MFI, a 13˝ portable television, a music system and an old upright piano. Whilst the dining area did have possession of a small table with hinged leaves, the latter was usually left folded against the wall, allowing for easier access to the kitchen and the backdoor.

Rather like living in a doll's house
, thought James.

As he had earlier related to the Archdeacon, he was now just finishing three years of post-graduate training to allow him to become a General Practitioner. For him, this was the pinnacle of his career so far; that point to which he had mentally projected himself ever since starting medical school ten years previously. He had started to look around for a practice to join and meanwhile had the offer of a locum post in Bishopsworth, Lincolnshire, all the time hoping to land a partnership in a good-quality practice in a market town in North Yorkshire as soon as possible. At least that was the plan.

North Yorkshire had always had an appeal for him. Ever since he nursed his first aged car from his parental home in Kent up the M1 and onwards into the Yorkshire Dales, he had fallen in love with the countryside and nurtured the desire to someday practise there. After qualification, each new junior doctor post was strategically planned to bring him closer and closer to this goal as he hospital-hopped up the country.

So why did it all seem wrong?
he reflected to himself.

From an outward appearance, everything was fine. The house, the cars, the job, the clothes – they all contributed to the image of a successful young doctor. It was only when he got back home and his marital relationship came into the equation that life seemed very different.

It was as though he actually led two lives, a public one and a private one. Even then, the private one was subdivided into the one he shared (if shared was the appropriate word) with his wife and the even more private one he led within his mind. It was the latter world in which he sought salvation, peace and tranquillity, as well as intellectual stimulus. It was the world where he felt most at one with himself, as though the rest of his life was some sort of complex sham.
Though perhaps not including the Church
, he thought. The Church actually helped feed his innermost world.

Alongside the Church, books and music (mainly classical and a little jazz) held the key for entry into his soul. He had long ago found he could induce a deep sense of melancholia by listening to Mahler, Beethoven or certain works by Mozart whilst reading a good book. For many, melancholia was a disease; a mental illness marked by depression and ill-founded fears. For James, melancholia was a form of pensive sadness. A state of mind from which he seemed to take particular comfort. Sometimes it seemed to the melancholic James that this was the most important world and everything outside it was false or trivial. His world was one where he could transcend the mundane and enjoy life for what it really could offer, albeit only in his mind.

He glanced across at Janice. She was oblivious to his presence, being absorbed by what he thought of as the inane and superficial scenes on the television. He would gladly have escaped such torment. However, there was nowhere in the house that provided that sort of sanctuary. Even his study could not provide the solitude after which he so often yearned, being too close to the stairs and too packed with books to allow for closure of the door. It was a constant source of unrest. What he would give to be able to quietly sit and play the piano or fill the house with the wondrous strains of orchestral music. Indeed, if he had his way, there would not even be a television in the house. He had quite happily lived without one for years until marrying. ‘Until marrying.' He silently mouthed the words, playing with them; rolling them round his tongue like a small ball of gum prior to being spat out. He continued the line of thought as a voiceless conversation in his mind. There, perhaps, lay the true answer to his unrest: the marriage, not the television.

He thought back to when he had first met Janice. It was whilst he was a medical student on an attachment to a hospital in Shropshire. She was a student nurse, though she never did complete her course. Slightly taller than James, with brown hair and eyes, she was a few years younger than him (which in itself was unusual as every other of his relationships had been with older women). Somehow their relationship survived despite the distance between Shropshire and London and they had married a few months after he qualified. It was probably a relationship of convenience; two lonely people thrown together by chance and neither having the courage to let go. With hindsight they should never have tied the knot, but it was too late now for regrets.

It was more or less a platonic relationship. James assumed that there was the involvement of love at some basic level. However, it was more akin to a brother–sister relationship; except, perhaps, even then not as close as some. There were no children and none were planned. It was not as though they argued. They just simply did not do anything together. James had his professional life and pursued his many interests, whilst Janice worked as a clerical assistant for the local council. Apart from that, she had no outside interests; no hobbies, no sport; nothing else to bring enjoyment into her life.

Her health did cause James concern. He had, on many occasions, tried to encourage her to stop smoking. He thought she had done so for about a year, then suddenly realised that she employed a complex cover-up system. Having been discovered, she did not actually smoke in his presence, but it was clear that she had no intention of stopping.

The smoking was probably all part of her bulimia. It had taken James some while to conclude that she had an eating disorder. It is true that you do not always see clearly that which is so obviously staring you in the face. He initially thought she was just a faddy eater. However, after a while it began to dawn on him: the avoidance of proper meals, the binge eating of junk foods, the regular use of laxatives and the excessive exercise regime. Of course, she had denied it all and refused to discuss the matter with her own GP. However, he was sure the problem was there. It did help to explain why they rarely ate together and never went out to restaurants. The matter of going to friends' houses or inviting friends back for a meal did not come into the equation as they simply did not have any friends; just work colleagues, no true friends.

The problem was that James did not really know what to expect from a relationship. He assumed that this was probably the norm and that he could not expect anything more. He had led a fairly solitary existence from his mid-teens until he qualified in 1985, pausing from his relentless pursuit of a medical career to have the occasional fling, but nothing that had withstood the test of time.

‘I'm going to have a bath.'

The voice startled him back to the present. Janice was halfway up the stairs,
EastEnders
being replaced by some other unrecognisable programme.

‘Fine. I'll be up a little later,' said James, knowing that what Janice really meant was that she would have a bath and then go straight to bed. There was no point in him joining her, as such attention would be futile and only cause frustration. It was easier to wait until he was tired and then sleep would be the blissful release from the reality of life.

He switched off the television, poured himself a gin and tonic, placed a record onto the turntable and settled a pair of headphones over his ears. An immediate sense of peace descended on the room as the moving melodies of Chopin's
Preludes
filled his head with wondrous arpeggios, the notes bouncing from one ear to the other and seeming to travel through the middle of his brain in so doing.

He picked up a volume of poetry by the Irish poet Yeats and started to read. He could identify with Yeats. He, too, seemed to have led an unsettled life full of yearning for something uncertain and just out of reach. Though, through his own state of depression, Yeats had at least produced some wonderfully expressive poetry. James sighed, pondering what Yeats would have written if asked to describe both their states of mind. He arrived at ‘divine discontent' and decided with a nod of approval that the short, two-worded phrase was probably a perceptive description.